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Chocolate Covered Pretzel Rods

Rather than making the traditional batch of brownies or cookies I went for CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZEL RODS for our church bazaar bake sale. My sister in law’s friend Leah made some for a 4th of July party and they disappeared in a couple of hours (I might have had something to do with that), so I knew they could be a hit!

Since they would be sold at a bake sale and not just to friends I made sure to do everything in the most professional way. What does that mean? I disinfected our entire kitchen from head to toe and I thought of a fun way to present the pretzels for sale. Then I brought the candy shop to our house.

After thinking for a few weeks about what types of chocolate covered pretzel rods I wanted to make I decided on Oreo, Heath bar, mini chocolate chips, Reese’s pieces, and my personal favorite… walnuts. Really any candy that you can crush up into small pieces would work. I imagine these would make a great addition to any Halloween party if they were presented as chocolate covered fingers muhahaha.

Making them is pretty easy, but there are lots of different methods. Here is how I do it.

Directions:

1. Prep all of your toppings. Put each topping (walnuts, heath bar, etc) in a sealed ziploc bag and crush into smaller pieces. I used both a rolling pin and a mallet to achieve the desired size pieces. The toppings stick better to the chocolate when they are in really small pieces, so don’t be afraid to make the bits really small. Put all the bags of toppings aside except the one you are going to use, which you should pour out onto a piece of wax paper. Lay out a few more pieces of wax paper to put the finished pretzel rods on.

2. Heat semi-sweet chocolate chips in 30 second increments in a tall microwaveable mug, stirring between increments. Be careful not to burn the chocolate. For me and the amount of chips I used that meant about 3- 30 second periods in the microwave. After the 3 intervals some of the chips still weren’t completely melted but they melted with a little stirring.

3. Dip a pretzel rod into the melted chocolate, using a spatula to bring the chocolate up the rod, leaving about 1/2 inch of the rod uncovered. Scrape some of the chocolate off the rod with a spatula so that there is only a very thin layer of chocolate covering it. Roll the chocolate covered rod in your topping and place on a piece of wax paper. Repeat!

Tips & Thoughts

-I worked in small batches so the chocolate wouldn’t harden. Between each batch I washed my workspace, hands, and the mug and used new chocolate. I was worried about overheating some of the chocolate and ending up with those nasty white spots, but by working in small batches and not needing to reheat any of the chocolate I prevented that from happening.

-It took me a solid hour to crush all of the toppings in their bags, and it was tiring. Next time I would do that part of the task ahead of time. The whole process from start to finish, aside from cleaning the kitchen before and after, took about 3 hours. I made 110 pretzel rods.

-When dipping the rods in the chocolate I almost brushed or painted the chocolate off of the rod with the spatula. I noticed that the pretzel rods with thinner layers of chocolate held the topping much better than the ones that had thicker layers of chocolate.

-You eat with your eyes before anything else so present your baked goods nicely for bake sales! After debating using a ribbon or a simple gold round sticker and asking around on Twitter (I’m @rhodeygirltests) I decided to keep it simple with the sticker and then label each bag. The labels I chose were both simple and fun (for example: chocolate squared for the chocolate chip covered rod and candy bar for the trio of Heath bar, Reese’s pieces, and Oreo).

If these won’t make you crave sweets, I don’t know what will!

And yes, they all sold!

P.S. Have you checked out PB’s blog yet? Without my amazing husband’s help and support this blog wouldn’t be what it is today. I am so lucky to have such an amazing husband!

This just gave me a great idea for Christmas time!! They look amazing and who doesnt like chocolate covered preztles!!
P.S. thanks for your comment 🙂 I totally let the blog slide off my radar for a little while and it seems the longer I wait the harder it is to get back into it, but I miss it a lot!! Plus I have a giveaway so that now will kick my butt into gear and get me back on top of things. Seeing your comment definintely helped too 🙂 My goal is by the end of the day today!!

Darcie- Thank you! We sold these in bags of 3 for $2.50. My cost/3 including packaging was $1.25 BUT I donated the pretzels so the church received 100% of the sales. If I hadn’t donated them the profit would not have been much as I used premium chocolate (Ghirardelli, etc) and higher cost toppings such as walnuts. However, if you used cheaper supplies I am sure it would be even more profitable.

I will also add that while I only made about 50 bags they sold quite quickly! Good luck and let me know how it turns out!

I am hoping you can help me. Which chocolate to use–dark, semi sweet etc? Which is the usual one? I made these for my son last year as he is deployed. He loved them and request again. However I lost the recipe. I am a bit desperate HELP

wow! those look great.
i tried to make some earlier and used the round choc. candy that they sell in the craft stores but, what a mess. the choc. was too thick. any sugestions how to make the choc. thinner for dipping?
next time i will try the choc. chips.
thanks

I just made these using the smaller twisty pretzel rods because my Safeway didn’t have any of the longer ones, but the shorter ones still worked great. I dipped them in the dark chocolate then rolled some of them in milk chocolate chips and the others in the crushed peppermint. Amazing!! And my friends all love me just a little bit more now! =P

OMG…these look awesome…found your blog post today when I was looking for Witches Sticks for halloween chocolate covered pretzels. I’d love to make these for Christmas for all my friends and family…thanks for sharing. Fondly, Roberta

These are great! We did a test run using your steps and it’s the best! We’re going to make them for the hotel bags at my upcoming wedding. But…where did you get the bags? I can’t seem to find any. Any help is gratefully appreciated!!

I am baking things for a charity event for a friend of mine who is in his early 40’s that has incurable cancer. I have made these before for my daughter and her roommates at college but have never sold them. I would love to sale some at the benefit. Do you mind telling me how much you sold these for. You did a great job. Thank you so much.

I so wish I could figure out to to make this work. I’ve tried several times and nothing sticks onto the pretzels! I bought some Log House brand Candiquick – candy coating since I’ve used it before to dip oreos and it’s easy to work with. Nothing would stick on my prezel rods. Everything just slid off. BIG MESS! I tried so many things…I let most drip off, let less drip off, tried to let harden a bit, sit in refrig to start to harden and then try to roll in toppings, also tried to just sprinkle toppings while laying on cookie sheet since I was willing to take only having topping on one side as better than none but to no success. I eneded up with plain dipped rods – flat on one side from laying them on the cookie sheet. Not at all pretty or having coating all around like yours. The flat side didn’t even have choc covering as you could see the pretzel showing through on the flat sides. Any ideas that could help me out? Thank you

@Cathy, Hi Cathy. The only thing I can think of is that the type of pretzels you were using were too smooth and slippery? I wish I had more advice, but I never dealt with that issue before. I have asked around for 2 weeks now and none of my friends have any idea either. Sorry I can’t be of more assistance!

Thanks for trying to look into it. It’s so odd that the coating just would not stay on the rods and then trying to dip with the weight of the chips and nuts…everything just slid off.. I was using lg rods – kinda look like the old school 1st grade fat pencils. They had corse salt on them. I feel like such an idiot that this will not work out for me. I consider myself an excellent baker and even make birthday and wedding cakes for friends. I should have been able to do this.The kids were so disappointed. I am going to try it again.

thank you so much for this idea! i was searching for a new creative way to “spice” up the plain covered pretzel when i found this and i can promise you .. every one who gets them for christmas this year will be impressed! thanks again!

Thanks for all the great pictures and ideas! Once these are made, how does one properly store them? Would just an air-tight container work with wax paper between layers? Can they be put in the freezer for a short time? Thanks! Jana Schroeder

@Jana Schroeder, I usually put them in an airtight container with wax paper once the chocolate has fully firmed up. I have never frozen them, although I have kept them in an airtight container for a few days. They don’t last long around here!

Have ben making chocolate covered pretzels for about 4 years, grandkids favorite treat to take to school for their BD treat. I dip and they get to do the sprinkles. LOVE the way explained how to crush the candy, cookies finely chopped nuts. We print out small stickers that say “Birthday treat from (child’s name). Yours were done up in bags just like I use.
Best wishes
Martha

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